


Just Around the Riverbend

by AkakoDukes, carrollthevee



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Brotp, F/M, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-04-01
Updated: 2012-03-31
Packaged: 2017-11-02 20:41:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/373118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AkakoDukes/pseuds/AkakoDukes, https://archiveofourown.org/users/carrollthevee/pseuds/carrollthevee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a world where Druids are feared savages of myth, Uther Pendragon sets out to find gold and riches in a new land. Arthur, Uther's son, and a great warrior, comes with him. In this new world he finds Merlin, a Druid. But a romance between them is forbidden, and fraught with danger, especially when it seems their peoples will never find peace.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just Around the Riverbend

**Author's Note:**

> This is what happens when people make Merlin videos to Pocahontas songs. This is only the prologue, so expect Merthur in later chapters. Enjoy!

When the wind speaks, her voice is not a loud cry. The wind’s voice is a soft whisper, a gentle nudge in the right direction. She does not push—she guides.  
  
At first, it is nothing but a gentle caress, soft as a mother’s hand against his cheek. He feels her spirit, rustling his hair with her soft words. He can hear her, whispering in his ear, though he can’t quite make out the words. It is almost time, but not yet. The hunger is a distant thing, his body is so, so far and his spirit is spread wide across the land, reaching, feeling all the life in the woods, every spirit and creature, moving as one. It is an awesome feeling, weaving his spirit into the life threads of the Earth, leaving his body behind and communing with nature in her deepest form.  
  
The voice that follows his spirit, he knows, is not the Earth. The low voice, chanting hymn to the Earth mother is Gaius, his focal point, meant to anchor him to the physical world, to ensure he returns from the spirit world once he finds his quest. He has been fasting for three days now, since the day marking his fifteenth cycle, communing with the spirits and waiting for the wind to speak.  
  
His body sits at the center of the village, where Gaius has marked the earth with runes meant to protect and guide his spirit. The old man sits before him, but a few feet away, a bowl of burning sage in his lap. Gaius fans the sage, guiding the crisp earthy scent to his body with a fan of leaves. To keep the spirit pure, he had told him.  
  
The air that fills his lungs is kissed with smoke. It lingers there, as he breathes slowly, seemingly filling every pore with its own sort of magic, blessing him with its presence.  
  
When the wind speaks, it is a whisper. She caresses the dark locks of his hair, ghosts over his ears and tells him her secrets. The voice she leaves with him is pained. His spirit has found its way, found the voice that calls to him so desperately. It wrenches his heart, and the wind’s call drives him back to his body.  
  
The breath he takes, returned to his flesh, is deep, and when he opens his eyes again seeking Gaius, they glow golden.  
  
The old man lets out a cry, not of pain, but of victory. “It is time!” He speaks the words of the ancients, protections to keep the boy safe. “Merlin, go.”  
  
And when Merlin rises and takes off running, the wind is at his back, urging him onwards.  
  


\---

  
He has trekked through the forest, leaping across streams and climbing through trees, he has not stopped. It's been nearly two days. The voice that had been calling him has gone silent, and though he keeps on he fears the worst. Every spirit quest is different and there are no rules to follow, and so he has only his speculations to go on and he worries that maybe he’s lost the voice, lost his way. His heart sinks, but he keeps walking. He can feel the wind in the trees, knows he should let her wisdom be his guide.  
  
The tree line breaks, and he finds himself at the bank of a river. _This is it._ He knows, he can feel it in the air, this is where he needs to be—and that is when he sees it. Or, rather, him.  
  
Lowering his body to the ground, Merlin approaches, taking cautious steps towards the body on the bank. Whoever the man is, he is pale, no doubt ill and needing help, and the closer Merlin gets, the more alarmed he is by this man’s state. Throwing caution to the wind, he approaches fast. The man’s body is curled around something, but that isn’t what drew Merlin’s immediate attention. The man’s face is covered in dark, dried blood—a head wound—and the flesh from his calf is torn, with the pearly white of bone jutting from the wound.  
  
As he reaches out, fingers daring to ghost over the man’s matted hair, he feels her. The wind is all around them, letting her presence be known as she picks up, lifting the feathers tied into his hair and the torn edges of the man’s shirt. _This_ , he thinks, and brushes his fingers over the man’s pale cheek, pushing back some of the dark, sweat drenched hair that clings to his forehead.  
  
“I will help you,” he whispers, and it is a promise to himself, to this man, and the wind carries it away with her.  
  


\---

  
It doesn’t take him long to set the man’s leg, to whisper the few healing words he’s learned over the man’s wound to stave away infection. The sun is setting now, and the wind has calmed her whispering. The forest is settling with cicadas buzzing in the distance and the creatures of the night rustling their way through the woods. It is a peaceful night, and Merlin is grateful for it, as he sets the man’s head in his lap and brushes a wet cloth against his forehead gently.

  
He studies the man’s features for a long moment and finds he’s not as old as Merlin anticipated. He’s surely not more than a few cycles older than Merlin himself. With a soft sigh, Merlin sets aside the cloth and looks away, settling his eyes on what the man had been protecting. He’s set it off to the side, propped against some moss covered rocks. It is a large, large glimmering stone. When he’d touched it earlier he’d felt a dull hum inside, magic calling magic. But it was not his stone, he kept his distance.   
  
There is a soft frown on his face as he unsheathed his knife. He’ll have to cut the man’s hair, which is a shame—it looks like it was a source of pride, long and certainly before this ordeal it had been quite luscious.   
  
“I’m sorry,” he says softly, before he begins cutting away the matted locks of hair, leaving the man’s hair short against his head. Merlin felt the head stir against his legs and he looked down, watching those eyes open and reveal tired, worn down brown. His look softened as he felt the man take a few short intakes of breath before he focused. He could feel the man stirring, trying to sit up as he focuses on the pendant that hangs from Merlin’s neck.   
  
“Shh, don’t move.” Merlin’s voice is a gentle whisper when he speaks, pressing his hand down gently on the man’s chest.   
  


\---

  
The words made no sense. Gwaine starts to panic, but reaches up to clutch at the triskelion. The man had to know, and he couldn’t understand what he was saying, so he tries to speak. Only to be horrified when nothing comes forth, and he tries again, with the same results. He takes in a few more short breaths, fear creeping into his eyes. He tries to sit up again, to move toward the precious package in his possession, what he almost had given his life for.  
  
The man, really just a boy, is emphatic in what he next says, keeping Gwaine pinned firmly down and pointing downward toward his legs. It’s only when a pain shoots up his leg that he gets it. Weary, in pain, he stays down this time, but tugs at the triskelion pendant again, pointing to the egg. He huffed a breath, wishing there wasn’t this pesky problem they seemed to have communicating. He couldn’t talk, his helper didn’t speak his language. He brings his head back down into the dark haired boy’s lap, already tired out. He mouths “Please,” to the heavens, hoping beyond hope that his journey and hardships hadn’t been for nothing. He had to get him to understand. It’s then that a wind whips up around them, and a tingle starts in the back of Gwaine’s head where it meets with his saviors legs. It shocks him and he brings his eyes up to meet the blue ones of his rescuer.  
  
Their eyes lock with each other, and suddenly, there’s a moment, where everything is one with them. He knows his rescuer’s name, Merlin, and that he’s a Druid, he knows that Merlin knows that this is Mother Nature giving them a gift - not something they want but something they need. He knows...  _everything _ he needs to know in that instant. This energy gives him hope, that not all is as lost as he believed. Something about a Spirit Guide has Gwaine’s eyes widening in sheer disbelief. Sure he believed in the fabled Druids, and had never feared them, but this was so new to him, he couldn’t help that tendril of fear. But he feels himself taking advantage of the situation, pointing to the egg a little bit away, hoping to convey all that he knew about it. That it was meant for someone great, not of his homeland. No one had the power to tame the dragons but a few among the Druids. He and his father had set out to find them, to bestow this gift upon them. All it had netted him was a dead father and crew, and apparently a broken leg and nearly dying. If he could laugh, he would.  
  


\---

  
Merlin’s eyes lock with the man’s, and suddenly, it's as if everything falls into place. His eyes glow gold with the magic, the sheer spiritual energy flowing through him. It passes from him, into this man, like the ebb and flow of the tide. The thrumming of magic beneath his skin connects them, it brings an understanding that needs no words. This is mother nature at work, giving them a gift—not something they want but something they need, something that Merlin knows will stay with them for as long as they know each other. He feels this man, under his skin and in his soul and he knows it, as sure as he knows his very own name, that they are meant to be great friends, great allies. This is his spirit guide, and he knows this, and knows the man who lays in his lap knows it, just as he knows what this man is thinking. His cargo, not a stone at all but an egg, a dragon, lying in wait for someone who could free it from the shell, and the man himself, who lost so much for something so great.  
  
Merlin threads his fingers through the man’s shorn hair, bringing his other hand to the pendant hanging from his neck, the triskelion, before reaching up to pull his collar back, revealing the same mark inked into the skin of his shoulder in black. The faintest of smiles tugs at his lips as he looks down at the man, and he thinks,  _Brother, you are home, you are safe._  
  
He can feel the way his words strike a chord in the man, Gwaine, and feels his own heart tighten with feeling. Gwaine’s breath picks up, and Merlin can see the tears pricking at his eyes, sees the moment when he lets go and the tears flow freely. They stream down his face, leaving tracks in their wake, revealing the pale flesh beneath his dirty skin. With a sniffle of his own, Merlin smiles softly still, and strokes Gwaine’s hair, letting the other bury his face into the folds of his clothing, murmuring soothing words as Gwaine’s breath hitches lightly.  
  
“Its alright,” he says, knowing that Gwaine will understand his words, somewhere in his heart. “I will keep you safe.”  
  
It’s as if he can see the tension leaving Gwaine’s body as he comforts him, watches the fatigue settle over his weary body. He doesn’t care that Gwaine is crying—Merlin knows how easily tears spring to his own eyes, even before this—and he continues to whisper soothing words, letting Gwaine tuck himself against his body. He watches as Gwaine’s eyes fall shut of their own will, lets him know there will be plenty more to speak of in the days to come, and he knows the moment when sleep finally pulls the man into her grasp.  
  
“May your dreams be good,” he whispers, and stays where he is, letting Gwaine rest in his lap, stroking his hair.  
  
He sits like this for a long while, looking at Gwaine and wondering what mysteries he holds, and looking at the stars, and thanking mother earth for this gift she’s bestowed upon him. Just as he thinks,  nothing could be better , he feels it. Magic. Its reaching, searching, calling out loud for his own magic. The humming in the air is back, the tingle beneath his skin as his own magic rears up, reaching out to the other source. Its the egg.  
  
The dragon’s egg is calling to him, the spirit it holds inside is telling him to set it free. For a brief moment, he panics. He doesn’t know dragon magic—he is not of age to learn that, not yet—how will he free it if he cannot find the words? He trusts in the voice of the wood, the spirit of the dragon, the feeling that he knows, he just needs to reach deeper. He closes his eyes and focuses his mind, lets his body go as he feels the nature around him, lets his magic touch the soul within the egg.  _Yes, that’s it_ , he thinks, and opens his eyes again, glowing gold as he says the word, one soft word, in dragon tongue—  _"_ _Aithusa_ .”  
  
It doesn’t take much time for the egg to begin rocking. The shell is cracking and for a moment, Merlin wishes he didn’t have to sit still. The air is thrumming with the energy of birth and it is such a beautiful feeling, it leaves him brimming with excitement. He’s brought this life into the world, he thinks, as he sees the white tip of a snout poke through a crack in the shell. With a burst, the rest of the egg cracks open, and there sits a tiny white dragon.  
  
Its head tilts, as it looks at Merlin, a soft sort of coo leaving its throat and it's only then Merlin feels the wetness on his cheeks, realizes he’s crying and grinning and he is completely in awe at this miracle that has happened before him.  
  
“Hello, Aithusa.”  
  
And in his heart he knows exactly what the word means, he knows what he’s named this life.  
  
 _Light of the Sun. _

 


End file.
